Kathy Szenda Wilson, Co-Executive Director

Kathy Szenda Wilson is Co-Executive Director of BC Pulse. Kathy came to BC Pulse with 17 years of experience in philanthropy.

Kathy’s career began with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where she supported national grantees by providing communications strategy and planning. While there she led staff efforts towards inclusion through the development of an internal committee that focused on issues of equity and personal transformation.

After her tenure at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kathy served as Director of Neighborhood Programs with the Battle Creek Community Foundation. As part of the Foundation’s Executive Team, she developed practices and policies to support effective stewardship and supportive community leadership. Her primary responsibility was to ensure that resident groups had access to the resources necessary to transform their community. She did this by developing and sustaining a nationally-renowned program that authentically engaged residents and built their leadership capacity in ways that benefited the community.

While at the Community Foundation, Kathy also served on the Monday Morning Group, a coalition created to address the issue of youth violence in Battle Creek. It was through this work that she led efforts to align local organizations and institutions so that their efforts and resources best met the needs of the youth affected by and engaged in violence.

Kathy is certified as a Community Coach through Leadership That Works and as a Diversity Facilitator through the Facilitated Leadership Program of the Fetzer Institute. She’s completed training through the Asset Based Community Development Institute and currently serves as a board member for Grassroots Grantmakers, a national affinity group as well as Speak It Forward, a local youth development nonprofit that integrates spoken word art into treatment. She has consulted with groups across the country in support of their efforts to authentically engage residents. She studied journalism at Central Michigan University and organizational development at Spring Arbor University. She resides in Battle Creek with her husband and two children.

BC Pulse, a project of Michigan State University, supports collective action and learning utilizing the ABLe Change Framework to create systems change to ensure that every child in Battle Creek has equal opportunity to experience quality early learning, health, economic security, safety & nurturing care.